Month: March 2026

U.S. Commanders Want War With Iran to Bring About Biblical Armegeddon, Officers Report

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From Common Dreams

US Commanders Want to Make War With Iran as ‘Bloody’ as Possible to Bring About Biblical End Times, Officers Report

One noncommissioned officer said he was directed to tell his troops that Trump was “anointed by Jesus” and that war with Iran was “all part of God’s divine plan” to bring about Armageddon.

Stephen Prager
3-3-26

In less than a week, the US and Israel’s war has rendered unfathomable suffering upon the people of Iran. Over 180 schoolgirls and staffers were killed in a massacre this weekend, and several hospitals have reportedly been struck, amid numerous other attacks on civilians.

But some US troops are being told the bloodletting is all a part of God’s plan.

At a briefing on Monday, as President Donald Trump unleashed what has been called a “carpet bombing” of Tehran, a combat-unit commander reportedly told noncommissioned officers (NCOs) that the commander-in-chief was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.”

The complaint, sent by one of those noncommissioned officers, was just one of at least 110 similar reports received by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) since Trump first launched strikes on Saturday.

In compliance with the First Amendment, the Department of Defense has long adopted rules against proselytizing within the armed forces. But under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, an evangelical Christian who has said the West must wage a “crusade” against Islam, Christian nationalist invocations in the military have become commonplace.

Mikey Weinstein, the president and founder of MRFF and an Air Force veteran who served in the White House of former President Ronald Reagan, told independent journalist Jonathan Larsen that the group has been “inundated” with complaints from NCOs since Saturday, which all have “one damn thing in freaking common.”

“Our MRFF clients report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new ‘biblically-sanctioned’ war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian ‘End Times’ as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation,” Weinstein said.

“Many of their commanders,” he added, “are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be, zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end-of-the-world eschatology.”

According to Larsen, who first reported on the MRFF’s findings on Monday, the message has been spread far and wide as US troops rained missiles down upon Iran.

Larsen reported that the “complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations,” and have involved commanders in every branch of the US military.

One noncommissioned officer, who did not identify himself out of fear of retaliation, said his commander “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”

The NCO added that his commander “had a big grin on his face when he said all of this, which made his message seem even more crazy.”

“Our commander would probably be described as a ‘Christian First’ supporter,” he said. “He has been this way for a very long time and makes it clear that he desires all of us under him to become just like him as a Christian. But what he did this morning was so toxic and over the line that it shocked many of us in attendance at the ops readiness briefing.”

The NCO identified himself as a Christian, but emailed MRFF on behalf of 15 of his troops, which included at least one Muslim and one Jewish person.

He said that their commanders’ remarks “destroy morale and unit cohesion and are in violation of the oaths we swore to support the Constitution.”

Christian nationalism has long simmered just under the surface of US military culture and has been invoked by presidents of the past, including George W. Bush, who referred to his War on Terror as a “crusade.”

But Hegseth, who regularly hosts Christian prayer services at the Pentagon during work hours, rails against “secular humanism” and the “godless left,” and has hosted the notorious fundamentalist pastor Doug Wilson—who opposes the right of women to vote and calls for the US to be a Christian theocracy—at the Pentagon, has dropped any pretenses of religious pluralism.

“While America’s relationship with Iran is influenced by all the typical geopolitical factors of oil, culture, and nuclear weaponry, there is a part of American foreign policy that is influenced by apocalyptic evangelical theology,” wrote Josh Olds, a pastor and theologian, on Monday for Baptist News Global.

Christian fundamentalists, some of whom have the ear of the White House, he said, view an Iranian war with Israel as central to triggering Armageddon, during which God will miraculously strike down Israel’s enemies, Jesus will return to Earth, and Christians will be raptured to Heaven, according to Biblical teachings.

He said that while Iran’s Muslim leaders are often accused of being dangerously irrational out of blind religious fundamentalism, “it is increasingly clear that American actions are shaped by it as well.”

In just over three days, US and Israeli strikes have killed at least 787 people in Iran, according to a Tuesday report from the Iranian Red Crescent Society, including hundreds of civilians. In addition to schools and hospitals, attacks have been reported against crowded residential buildings, a radio and TV broadcast center, and a sports complex.

“Donald Trump partnered with Israel to bomb Iran because of the influence of an eschatology that sees conflict with Iran as setting the stage for fulfilled prophecy,” Olds said. “The irony is profound: A faith centered on loving enemies and making peace becomes a framework that welcomes and advocates violence. The result is not the advance of God’s kingdom but its irrevocable damage in the eyes of the world.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/iran-armageddon-military

Additional references at original article at link.

Statement on the Unlawful Use of Force against Iran and on the Defence of the International Legal Order

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From the ELDH European Association of Lawyers for Democracy & World Human Rights
EJDM Europäische Vereinigung von Juristinnen & Juristen für Demokratie und Menschenrechte in der Welt
EJDH Asociacion Europea de los Juristas por la Democracia y los Derechos Humanos en el Mundo
EJDH Association Européenne des Juristes pour la Démocratie & les Droits de l’Homme
EGDU Associazione Europea delle Giuriste e dei Giuristi per la Democrazia e i diritti dell’Uomo nel Mondo

STATEMENT ON THE UNLAWFUL USE OF FORCE AGAINST IRAN
AND ON THE DEFENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ORDER

The European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights in the World (ELDH)
unequivocally condemns the recent air strikes carried out by the United States and Israel against
the territory of Iran. In the current context of escalating regional tensions and repeated unilateral
uses of force, these actions constitute a new grave breach of international law and further
accelerate the erosion of the multilateral legal order established under the Charter of the United
Nations.

1.The Absolute Prohibition of the Use of Force

Article 2(4) of the UN Charter enshrines the prohibition of the threat or use of force as a
foundational norm of the international legal system. This rule is widely recognized as possessing
peremptory (jus cogens) character and admits of only narrow exceptions.

Absent authorization by the Security Council, the sole exception is the inherent right of self-defence
under Article 51, triggered only “if an armed attack occurs.” The jurisprudence of the International
Court of Justice has consistently interpreted this exception restrictively, requiring the existence of
an actual armed attack or, at most, an attack that is imminent in a strict and demonstrable sense,
subject to the conditions of necessity and proportionality. No such threshold appears to have been
met.

2.Uranium Enrichment and the Illegality of “Preventive” Force

References to Iran’s alleged uranium enrichment programme—even if assumed to raise compliance
concerns under non-proliferation regimes—do not constitute an armed attack, nor do they
automatically amount to an imminent armed attack within the meaning of Article 51.

Disputes regarding nuclear activities are governed by specific treaty regimes, including the
framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency, inspection mechanisms, and diplomatic
processes. Alleged non-compliance with nuclear obligations, however serious, does not create an
open-ended legal entitlement to unilateral military force.

The doctrine of “preventive self-defence,” premised on neutralizing potential future capabilities,
has no clear basis in positive international law. To accept that the mere development or possession
of technological capacity—without the occurrence of an armed attack—justifies bombing sovereign
territory would radically dilute Article 2(4) and transform the exception of self-defence into a
discretionary instrument of power.

The invocation of an “existential threat” cannot displace legal standards with political rhetoric.
International law does not recognize subjective threat perception as a substitute for the objective
criteria of armed attack, necessity, and proportionality.

3.A Dangerous Pattern in the Conduct of Aggressive Military States

These strikes cannot be viewed in isolation. They reflect a broader and deeply troubling pattern in
which aggressive military states increasingly rely on expansive interpretations of self-defence,
unilateral threat assessments, and force-first approaches that bypass or marginalize multilateral
institutions.

In the present context, the conduct of the United States and Israel illustrates a continued
willingness to resort to unilateral military action in circumstances where the legal threshold for selfdefence has not been demonstrably met. Such practices aim to destroy the collective security
architecture established in 1945.

If powerful states assert the authority to determine unilaterally when preventive force is lawful, the
prohibition of the use of force becomes contingent rather than binding. The result is not enhanced
security, but systemic instability and the weakening of the rule of law at the international level.

International law cannot survive as a selective instrument invoked when convenient and
disregarded when constraining.

4.A Call to the International Legal Community

In these grave circumstances, silence is not a neutral position. The integrity of the international
legal order depends not only on formal institutions but on the principled engagement of jurists,
scholars, judges, practitioners, and civil society.

We call upon the international legal community to:

  • Reaffirm unequivocally the binding nature of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter;
  • Reject the legal validity of preventive or pre-emptive uses of force absent an armed attack in the
    strict sense required by international law;
  • Defend the authority of multilateral mechanisms for dispute settlement and non-proliferation
    compliance;
  • Insist on accountability consistent with the law of State responsibility.

These are difficult and dangerous times. Precisely for that reason, fidelity to international law is
imperative. The erosion of foundational norms through silence or acquiescence would carry
consequences far beyond any single crisis. The defence of the Charter system is not optional; it is a
collective legal responsibility.

https://eldh.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Legal_Statement_Iran_Strikes.pdf